Ben Askren was handed his first professional loss at UFC 239. There, to start the fight, Jorge Masvidal ran across the cage and landed a perfectly timed flying knee that knocked “Funky” out cold. The official time of the fight was five seconds.
It was obviously not the way Ben Askren thought the fight would go. But, according to his friend and former welterweight champion, Tyron Woodley believes it will only make Askren better.
“I talked to him a little bit,” Woodley said to ESPN (as transcribed by MMA Fighting). “He’s a competitor. I just checked on him to make sure his health is good and give him his space. We’ve all got to deal with lessons our own way. If you don’t learn anything from it, it becomes a loss, so I can’t help him learn the lesson that he needs to learn from that. I think it’s gonna take him having to feel a little bit bad, a little bit looking at the mirror like, ‘Damn, that sh*t is (a) reality.’ Whatever lesson he gets from it, I think it will make him a better man, a better fighter.”
That makes both Tyron Woodley and coach, Duke Roufus confident the loss will make Ben Askren a better fighter. If it will is unknown, and won’t be known until “Funky” fights again.
